Whoops! NASA burned best evidence for life on Mars 40 years ago

NASA recently announced its Curiosity rover had discovered complex organic molecules – key raw materials for life as we know it – on the surface of Mars. But now it seems a previous NASA probe may have made the same discovery more than 40 years ago, then accidentally burned it up.

In 1976, NASA’s twin Viking landers conducted the first experiments that searched for organic matter on the Red Planet. Researchers had long known that all planets receive a steady rain of carbon-rich micrometeorites and dust from space, meaning that Mars should be …